Obama Urges Morehouse Graduates to ‘Keep Setting an Example\'

Doug Mills/The New York Times President Obama delivered the commencement speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

ATLANTA - President Obama came to Morehouse College, the alma mater of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on Sunday to tell graduates, 50 years after Dr. King's landmark “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, that “laws and hearts and minds have been changed to the point where someone who looks just like you can somehow come to serve as president of these United States.”

The president tied Dr. King's journey to his own, speaking in forthright and strikingly personal terms about his struggles as a young man with an absent father, a “heroic single mom,” and the psychological burdens of being black in America.

He also issued a challenge to the graduating class, imploring the young men of Morehouse, the nation's only historically black, all-male college, to be responsible family men, to set an example, and to extend a hand to those less privileged than them.

While Mr. Obama has struck these themes before, he has rarely done so in such unsparing terms. After a week in which his presidency seemed adrift on a sea of controversies, the speech served as both a reminder of his historic role and an emphatic change of subject.

“We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices,” Mr. Obama said. “And I have to say, growing up I made quite a few myself. Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down.”

“But one of the things all of you have learned over the last four years is there's no longer any room for excuses,” the president said to the roughly 500 graduates in a downpour, his words punctuated by claps of thunder.

Doug Mills/The New York Times Seniors sat in the driving rain as President Obama delivered the commencement speech.

Wearing academic robes in maroon and black - he was later awarded an honorary law degree - Mr. Obama singled out a graduate, Leland Shelton, who, as a four-year-old had been taken away from his mother by the state. By 14, he was in foster care.

On Sunday, Mr. Shelton graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors and is enrolling at Harvard Law School. The president said that Mr. Shelton planned to use his law degree to advocate for other foster children.

Above all, Mr. Obama exhorted the graduates to extend a hand to other black men, noting that his own success depended less on his Ivy League credentials than on the sense of empathy and obligation he felt, as a black man, to his brothers.

“But for the grace of God, I might be in their shoes,” the president said. “I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family.”

Reflecting on his turbulent childhood, Mr. Obama said, “I sure wish I had had a father who was not only present, but involved; didn't know my dad. And so my whole life, I've tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father wasn't for my mother and me.”

Declaring that “there are some things, as black men, we can only do for ourselves,” Mr. Obama urged the graduates to “keep setting an example for what it means to be a man.” And he asked them to extend their sense of justice to other minorities.

Even as he preached responsibility, Mr. Obama praised the distinguished lineage of Morehouse, whose roots go back to shortly after the Civil War, when 37 black men, slave and free, gathered to form the first class. It is a place, he said, where Dr. King first read Gandhi and Thoreau, and absorbed the theory of civil disobedience.

The president dwelt on the legacy of Dr. King, a member of the class of 1948, whom he described, on his arrival here, as an undersize 15-year-old nicknamed “Tweed” for his natty dress.

“It was here that professors encouraged him to look past the world as it was and fight for the world as it should be,” he said. “And it was here, at Morehouse, as Dr. King later wrote, where ‘I realized that nobody was afraid' - not even of some bad weather,” Mr. Obama added.

But the president's visit came as Morehouse was enmeshed in its own controversy. The college hastily revamped the format of its baccalaureate service after one of the speakers, the Rev. Kevin Johnson, wrote an op-ed in The Philadelphia Tribune, criticizing what he said was the president's lack of advocacy on behalf of African-Americans.

In an open letter to the college, the president of Morehouse, John Silvanus Wilson Jr., insisted he had changed the format to include more speakers. “To my chagrin,” he wrote, “my decision has been wrongly construed as a decision to ‘disinvite' this individual.”

Separately, four students from Morehouse were charged with sexual assault earlier this month in the alleged rape of two female students from nearby Spelman College. Three of the four students are members of the Morehouse basketball team.

Lawyers for the students say the encounters, fueled by drinking, were consensual. The college, declaring it has a “zero tolerance policy related to violence of any kind,” said it was cooperating with police and weighing its own disciplinary measures.

White House Aide Calls Criticism of Obama ‘Offensive\'

A senior adviser to President Obama mounted a combative defense of the administration on Sunday, saying the controversies enveloping the White House were the result of Republican lawmakers' trying to “drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations.”

The remarks came from Dan Pfeiffer, a member of the president's inner circle, as he appeared on all five major Sunday morning talk shows in an effort to move the administration past what commentators have described as a “hell week” of controversy and missteps. He pointedly rejected Republican criticisms of the president's actions and leadership style as “offensive” and “absurd,” and he said the administration would not be distracted from doing the nation's business.

In his appearances, Mr. Pfeiffer faced often tough questioning over the Internal Revenue Service's targeted reviews of conservative groups; the attack on an American diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in September; and the Justice Department's seizure of journalists' records.

He repeatedly pointed the finger at Republicans, saying they were exploiting the three issues for political purposes, even as he urged them to work with the administration on legislation to revamp the immigration system and trim the budget deficit.

His warning against “fishing expeditions” came when he was asked on the CBS program “Face the Nation” about a remark by the White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, who said he instructed staff not to spend more than 10 percent of their time on the three controversies.

The program's host, Bob Schieffer, asked whether that meant that the White House did not take the issues seriously.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “There are some very serious issues here, particularly the I.R.S., where there was inexcusable conduct that needs to be fixed. And that's going to happen.” But he said the president and his staff needed to keep “actually doing the people's work and fighting for the middle class.”

Republicans appearing on the Sunday shows insisted that they would be aggressive in pushing for fuller investigations, particularly of the I.R.S. and Benghazi matters. The administration has promised to cooperate, but is also fighting to keep the problems from overshadowing its agenda.

Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said on “Fox News Sunday” that investigators examining the I.R.S. scandal needed to answer critical questions: “Who knew? When did they know? Why did they do this? How high up in government did it go?”

Mr. Ryan, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which on Friday held an often testy hearing about the I.R.S. matter, said Americans had lost confidence in their government. “This is arrogance of power, abuse of power, to the nth degree,” he said.

Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican who is also on the committee, said on ABC's “This Week” that an inspector general's review of the I.R.S. matter, which was released last week and largely blamed ineffective I.R.S. management for undue scrutiny of Tea Party groups, was “just the beginning of this process.”

Mr. Pfeiffer tried to clarify a main point - Mr. Ryan's “when did they know” - about when Mr. Obama learned that an I.R.S. unit had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, saying repeatedly on Sunday that the president had learned about the matter only weeks ago. That was appropriate, he said, given the importance of insulating the I.R.S. from White House pressures.

“There is no question Republicans are trying to make political hay here,” Mr. Pfeiffer said of the I.R.S. scandal. And regarding Benghazi, he said on Fox, “there's a series of conspiracy theories the Republicans have been spinning about this since the night it happened.”

Chris Wallace, the Fox host, pressed Mr. Pfeiffer to explain exactly what Mr. Obama was doing on Sept. 11 as reports of the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi emerged - specifically whether the president had gone to the Situation Room to monitor events. Mr. Pfeiffer dismissed the question as irrelevant and rejected what he said was an implication of presidential inattention. The attack killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

“The assertions from Republicans here that somehow the president allowed this to happen and didn't take action is offensive,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “There's no evidence to support it.”

But the minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, picking up a Republican theme, cast the disputes as symptoms of a deeper problem. “There is a culture of intimidation throughout the administration,” he said on NBC News's “Meet the Press.” “The I.R.S. is just the most recent example.”

The president has insisted that it would have been wrong to have been involved earlier in the I.R.S. matter or to interfere with the Justice Department's investigation into leaks that led to the seizure of the journalists' records. That has provoked criticism that his management style leans too far in the other direction - so detached as to be ineffectual.

“I think that's an absurd proposition,” Mr. Pfeiffer said on Fox. “What would be a real problem is if he was involved in those things.”

Senate Panel, Getting Punchy on Immigration, Quits for the Night

8:42 p.m. | Updated After a break for dinner and votes, the Senate Judiciary Committee moved onto Title II of the immigration overhaul bill, which deals with the path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country.

As the night wore on, the group grew increasingly punchy. Mr. Schumer, talking about his bipartisan group, made a wayward “Gangnam Style” allusion when he said, “Gang-gang-like that guy from Korea.” His fellow senators groaned, and shortly after, Mr. Leahy, the committee chairman, adjourned for the evening.

The committee will pick up where it left off on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. and Mr. Leahy was already warning about an even longer day.

8:01 p.m. | Updated This week, Mr. Hatch has become the senator to watch because with the exception of Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both of whom are in the bipartisan group that drafted the bill, Mr. Hatch is considered the Republican most likely to support the legislation coming out of committee.

His support would give the bill an added boost of conservative gravitas, and help send it to the Senate floor will a jolt of bipartisan momentum.

However, Mr. Hatch has made it clear that his vote comes with a price - specifically, support for some of his amendments that are favored by the high-tech industry, as well as provisions that fall in the finance jurisdiction. One amendment, for instance, would require that immigrants pay all of their back taxes and stay current with any new taxes as they undergo the legalization process.

On Monday, during a break for dinner, Mr. Hatch gave reporters an update on the state of his negotiations with the bipartisan group.

“We're making headway, we're not there yet,” he said. “I just hope we can get there by tomorrow, and hopefully that will be something that will solidify this bill out of committee.”

He said that if he is able to pass his high-tech amendments in the committee, he would agree to holding back his four finance amendments and offering them later on the Senate floor. But, he cautioned, the finance amendments would still have to pass the full Senate before he will throw his support behind the bill.

“If I don't get those four, or something very close to them,” he said, “I will vote against this bill on the floor. And they know that, they know that I've been straight up on it.”

Mr. Durbin so far has emerged, along with Mr. Grassley, as one of the major opponents to Mr. Hatch's high-tech amendments, worrying that they would harm American workers. But Mr. Hatch said his concern was just the opposite - that the current state of the bill would harm American companies.

“It's got to be something that works, not something that pushes people offshore, which is what the current language does,” he said. “The whole high tech world is up in arms about it.”

Mr. Hatch added: “We lead the world in high tech, why do we want to give that up to the rest of the world when we can stay strong here and keep our dollars?”

Still, Mr. Hatch was optimistic, and privately, Senate aides said they expected a deal might be reached as early as Monday night.

“I'm certainly working with them to see if we can come up with language I can support,” Mr. Hatch, 79, said, before adding with a laugh, “I'm just a poor young humble senator from Utah.”

5:07 p.m. | Updated Monday's meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee was expected to be long - perhaps dragging late into the evening - but largely devoid of partisan fireworks, as the panel returns to debating and amending a broad overhaul to the nation's immigration laws.

Several of the more controversial and difficult provisions still being negotiated are likely to be debated in the committee this week, or could be introduced later on the Senate floor.

For instance, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, who is viewed as a crucial swing vote on the committee, has said publicly and privately that his support would require the passage of several of his amendments, which would increase the number of H-1B visas available to high-skilled workers in science, technology, engineering and math. Senator Richard J. Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and a member of the bipartisan group that drafted the immigration bill, opposes such measures on the grounds that they would hurt American workers. Mr. Hatch's office is still working with the bipartisan group to reach a compromise.

Similarly, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the committee's chairman, is considering offering his Uniting American Families Act as an amendment to the bill this week. Mr. Leahy's provision would allow for American citizens to sponsor their foreign same-sex partners for green cards. Though many Democrats on the committee and in the bipartisan group agree with the amendment, Republicans have said that adding protections for same-sex couples could kill the entire overhaul.

Here is a look at some of the interesting and important amendments from Monday's session, including provisions for refugees and asylum seekers, immigration courts, and trafficking:

- LEAHY 3, Allowing immigrants who are victims of domestic violence or human trafficking to work while their applications for legal status is pending - Approved by voice vote

Mr. Leahy offered an amendment that would allow immigrants who are victims of domestic violence or human trafficking to work while their applications for legal status is pending.

“I think that we cannot close our eyes to them,” Mr. Leahy said, referring to immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse. “As I've said over and over again, a victim is a victim is a victim.”

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the committee, at one point asked how many immigrants would use this provision.

“How many abused people are out there?” Mr. Leahy asked. “I don't know the answer to that.”

The amendment was ultimately approved through a voice vote.

- GRASSLEY 27, Implementing a one-year filing deadline for asylum cases - Tabled

Mr. Grassley introduced an amendment to “maintain the integrity of the asylum process,” which would have put in place a one-year filing deadline for asylum cases - meaning that immigrants seeking asylum would have one year after arriving in the country to file their petition.

The current bill, Mr. Grassley said, “would make it easier for those who wish to do us harm to exploit the system.”

He mentioned the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, who were allowed to stay in the United States after their father was granted asylum, before adding, “My concern is that we're not doing enough to prevent fraud.”

Mr. Durbin, however, said he worried that immigrants who came to the United States seeking asylum were often “traumatized by the experiences they've had,” and might not even realize there's a one-year deadline.

“It creates an artificial barrier to people who otherwise would be eligible,” he said.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, came down somewhere in the middle, saying that while she had a “problem” with leaving no limit on asylum claims, she thought a longer bar - perhaps a five-year window - was more reasonable.

Mr. Durbin said he was open to compromise on that front, and the committee decided to hold the amendment until it could reach a bipartisan compromise.

- FEINSTEIN 3, Creating immigrant visas for displaced Tibetans from India and Nepal - Approved by voice vote

Ms. Feinstein then introduced an amendment that would create 5,000 immigrant visas for displaced Tibetans from India and Nepal over a three-year period.

“On this issue, I don't mind irritating China,” Mr. Grassley said, to laughter.

“That was not my intent,” Ms. Feinstein clarified.

“Added benefit,” quipped Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and a member of the bipartisan group, shortly before the provision was adopted through a voice vote.

- GRAHAM 2, Requiring the Department of Homeland Security to turn over information on visa overstays to federal law enforcement agencies - Approved by voice vote

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of the bill's authors, introduced a tweak to one of his original amendments, which would require the Department of Homeland Security to turn over information on visa overstays to federal law enforcement agencies.

The provision, intended to assuage concerns in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings after an investigation determined that some of the suspects' friends had overstayed their student visas, was approved in a voice vote.

- GRAHAM 1, Revoking legal status from asylum seekers who returned to their home country without “good cause” - Approved by voice vote

In another amendment intended to address the fallout from the Boston bombings, Mr. Graham introduced a provision that could revoke legal status from asylum seekers who returned to their home country without “good cause.” One of the Boston suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, returned to Dagestan for a six-month trip last year.

“What it says is that if you return to the country where you sought asylum from and were persecuted without good cause, you can lose your status,” Mr. Graham said.

Citing, for instance, a funeral of a loved one back in the home country, Mr. Graham added, “It can be waived if there's good cause.”

Immigration advocates oppose Mr. Graham's amendment, because they believe there are many legitimate reasons - an ailing parent, or a piece of property in the home country that an immigrant still needs to deal with - that refugees or asylum seekers might need to return to their home country.

The amendment was approved on a voice vote, though a few notes of dissent could be heard.

- HATCH 6, Requiring the establishment of a biometric exit system at the 30 largest airports in the country - Approved, 13-5

In what was probably the biggest vote of the day so far, the committee voted 13 to 5 to approve an amendment by Mr. Hatch that would ultimately require the establishment of a biometric exit system at the 30 largest airports in the country, in order to track immigrants when they leave on international flights.

The amendment, introduced in Mr. Hatch's absence by Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona and a member of the bipartisan group, would require the Department of Homeland Security to put in place a biometric system - like fingerprint recognition - in the 10 biggest airports in the country within two years, and have the program up and running in the “Core 30” airports within six years.

Almost all of the senators on the committee agree that a biometric identification system is the most tamper-proof, as well as the golden ideal, but Democrats especially have questioned how logistically possible such a program is. Last week, the group debated an amendment by Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, that would have required a biometric exit system to be in place at all land, air and sea ports before any immigrants could begin to receive legal status. Mr. Sessions's amendment was defeated 12 to 6, but Monday's discussion of Mr. Hatch's amendment on a similar topic seemed to pick up on the debate over a biometric exit system.

“It mandates a biometric program at our largest airports,” Mr. Schumer said. “It's a good start.”

Mr. Schumer added, “As we've all said, we'd love to move to a biometric system, but we have to make sure it works,” and he said he did not want to “hold up” the immigration legislation while trying to perfect a biometric program.

Ms. Feinstein, who said she believed that “the biometric field is the field of the future,” called the provision “a very positive compromise.”

Mr. Sessions, however, was not satisfied, arguing that the amendment did not go as far as current law and, in a mini-outburst, exclaimed that he was “daggone tired” and frustrated with the government's not doing what it was supposed to be doing. (Mr. Flake said he did sympathize with Mr. Sessions, saying, “We're all frustrated by the slow pace of this.”)

“A lot of people are tired of a lot of things,” Mr. Leahy said, in a tone of exasperation.

But ultimately, Mr. Hatch's amendment won approval, with the two Republican members on the committee who are also in the bipartisan group - Mr. Flake and Mr. Graham - voting in favor of it. They were joined by two of their Republican colleagues: Mr. Hatch and Senator Mike Lee of Utah. Mr. Leahy voted against the provision, because he was concerned that it would not be logistically feasible.

- GRASSLEY 52, Prohibiting any asylum and refugee provisions until one year after a review of the Boston Marathon bombings - Failed in a voice vote

After a break for lunch, Mr. Grassley introduced an amendment that would have prohibited any asylum and refugee provisions until one year after the Director of National Intelligence submits to Congress a review of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Democrats on the committee and immigration advocates expressed concern that Mr. Grassley's provision would unfairly delay needed improvements to the asylum system, and said that asylum-seekers shouldn't be forced to suffer simply because the Boston bombing suspects came to the country on their father's asylum petition.

The provision failed in a voice vote, an outcome with which Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida who is a co-author of the bill but does not sit on the committee, was not pleased.

“There are serious concerns about how shortcomings in our immigration system could have allowed the Boston Marathon terrorist attack to occur,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman for Mr. Rubio, in an e-mail statement. “Congress should be provided with a thorough investigation of the bombing before we make any changes to our asylum provisions or our student visa system because the lessons we will learn from an investigation will allow us to identify and correct the flaws in the current system that exposed us to this attack. Senator Rubio will fight to ensure that we have a complete understanding of what allowed the Boston bombings to occur and will make sure that we make the needed changes to close any holes in our immigration system to prevent future acts of terrorism in the United States.”

- GRASSLEY 43, Making immigrants ineligible for legal status if they are determined to be a member of a street gang - Failed 8-10

Mr. Grassley introduced an amendment intended to crack down on immigrants who belong to criminal gangs, which, while ultimately voted down in an 8 to 10 party line vote, provided a fun back and forth on “gangs.” (Remember, the bipartisan group that drafted the current immigration overhaul is often referred to as the “Gang of Eight.”

“My amendment is about gangs, and I imagine there's a lot of good use of the word ‘gang,' like ‘Gang of Eight,'” Mr. Grassley said, by way of introduction.

In fact, Mr. Grassley's amendment would have made immigrants ineligible for legal status if the Secretary of Homeland Security is able to prove that the immigrant was a member of a street gang, as well as a “danger to the community.”

“It is straightforward, and would help remove dangerous criminal gang members,” Mr. Grassley said.

And with that, it was back to “gang” repartee, with Mr. Leahy saying he would, “yield to our most distinguished gang member.”

One such member of the Gang of Eight, Mr. Durbin, joked, “We were thinking about tattoos.”

But despite the joviality, and despite the fact that nearly every committee member seemed to agree with Mr. Durbin's statement that “gang activity is deadly and dangerous,” the amendment failed.

- FRANKEN 7, Seeking to help protect children who are separated from their parents during immigration raids and deportations - Approved, 18-0

Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, introduced an amendment - the “Humane Enforcement and Legal Protections for Separated Children Act” - that would help protect children who are separated from their parents during immigration raids and deportations.

In introducing his provision, Mr. Franken discussed several moving stories, including one of second-grader who came home from school to find his parents were gone, and cared for his younger sibling on his own for a week. He also mentioned an infant, still breast-feeding, who was separated from its mother for several days after an immigration raid.

Under Mr. Franken's amendment, for instance, immigration enforcement officials would be required within two hours of a raid to inquire if the immigrant in custody is the primary care-giver of a child and, if so, give the immigrant at least two phone calls to arrange for child care in their absence.

The legislation had several co-sponsors - Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware; Ms. Feinstein; Mr. Grassley; and Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii - and passed unanimously, 18 to 0.

Follow Ashley Parker on Twitter at @AshleyRParker.

Senate Panel Asks I.R.S. Chief to Detail Communications With White House

If the Internal Revenue Service and the Obama administration thought the Senate Finance Committee and its Democratic leaders would offer something of a respite from the battering they have been taking from Congressional Republicans, they learned otherwise on Monday.

Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is the chairman of the committee, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican, forwarded a six-page letter to Steven Miller, the acting I.R.S. commissioner, who announced his resignation last week. It contained 41 pointed questions about the I.R.S.'s efforts to single out for special scrutiny conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Those questions, which are to be answered by May 31, go well beyond the agency's actions and address the questions Republicans have been asking for a week: Who in the Obama administration knew what? And when did they know it?

“Provide copies of all documents between I.R.S. employee(s) and anyone else regarding the targeting of applications based on the existence of certain phrases and/or subjecting those targeted applications to full development and heightened scrutiny,” the letter read.

“Was the decision to target any tax-exempt applications for review and subject them to full development or heightened scrutiny influenced or prompted in any way by political pressure directed at the I.R.S. from any members of the Congress or other elected officials?” it asked.

“Provide documents relating to communications between any and all I.R.S. employees and any and all White House employees, including, but not limited to, the president, regarding the targeting,” the letter said.

The document also demanded the identity “by name, grade and position title” of “every I.R.S. supervisor, I.R.S. manager or other I.R.S. employee who became aware that any individual in the White House or Treasury Department became aware of any improper targeting.”

The Finance Committee will convene a hearing on the issue on Tuesday featuring Douglas Shulman, a Bush administration appointee who led the I.R.S. while much of the targeting was taking place and who has not yet been questioned.

“I have a hunch that a lot more is going to come out, frankly. It's broader than the current focus,” Mr. Baucus said on Bloomberg Government's “Capitol Gains” television program. “And I think it's important that we have the hearings, and I think that will encourage other information to come out that has not yet come out. I suspect that we will learn more in the next several days, maybe the next couple, three weeks, which adds more context to all of this.”

Obama to Visit Sub-Saharan Africa in June

President Obama will make a weeklong trip to Africa this summer, the longest journey of his presidency so far to the continent of his father's family, the White House announced on Monday.

Mr. Obama will visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania from June 26 to July 3, the White House said. While he made a one-day stop in Ghana after visiting Russia and Italy in 2009, this will be his most extended visit to Africa since taking office.

“The president will meet with a wide array of leaders from government, business and civil society, including youth, to discuss our strategic partnerships on bilateral and global issues,” the White House said in a statement. “The trip will underscore the president's commitment to broadening and deepening cooperation between the United States and the people of sub-Saharan Africa to advance regional and global peace and prosperity.”

Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made high-profile trips to Africa as president, but Mr. Obama's visit carries additional political and personal significance since his father was from Kenya. While Mr. Obama was born and largely raised in Hawaii, his book “Dreams From My Father” offered a meditation on his roots and described his exploration of the African side of his family. But some activists have expressed disappointment that he did not spend significant time on the continent during his first term and have complained that he has not done more in terms of policy to advance African countries.

White House Sets U.S.-China Summit for California in June

President Obama plans to meet President Xi Jinping of China next month for the first time since Mr. Xi's installation as the leader of the world's most populous nation, as the two leaders try to establish a working relationship on critical issues like North Korea, the global economy and allegations of state-sponsored cyber attacks, the White House announced on Monday.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi will meet on June 7 and 8 at Sunnylands, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg estate in Southern California, the White House said. Mr. Obama already had travel scheduled on the West Coast at that time, officials said, so they decided that Sunnylands, a less formal setting, would provide a better environment for the two men to get to know each other. To prepare for the meeting, Thomas E. Donilon, the president's national security adviser, will travel to Beijing from May 26 to 28.

“The U.S.-China agenda is big and complex, and we have a lot of issues to discuss and work though,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House. “As we have said before, the relationship has elements of cooperation and elements of competition. We have no illusions about this. Our approach to China seeks to expand the areas of cooperation in managing regional and global challenges, and we seek to manage our differences in a way that prevents disruptive and unhealthy competition from undermining our interests and those of our allies in Asia.”

The meeting will come at a significant moment for the United States and China. As a recent flurry of threats from North Korea underscored, Mr. Obama is encouraging China to play a greater role in restraining the erratic conduct of its isolated neighbor. Moreover, China holds about $1.25 trillion in United States debt, more than any other foreign country, but its share of total debt has fallen in recent years to 7 percent from 10 percent, easing American reliance on Beijing.

As for cyber technology issues, the United States has accused China of state-sponsored cyber attacks that it believes have led to the theft of billions of dollars in intellectual property and government documents.

The meeting with Mr. Xi in California will be part of a busy few weeks in foreign relations for Mr. Obama. He plans to attend the Group of Eight summit meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in mid-June, where he will meet with longtime allies as well as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. On Monday, the White House announced that Mr. Obama will make a weeklong journey to Africa starting in late June.

Sunnylands, a sprawling estate more than 100 miles east of Los Angeles, has played host to seven American presidents, as well as members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the British royal family, and Hollywood figures like Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart and Ginger Rogers, according to its Web site.

The Early Word: Pre-Existing Conditions

Today's Times

• The cost of claims for people with serious pre-existing medical conditions has already exhausted most of the $5 billion provided by Congress in the 2010 health care law, Robert Pear writes.

• Members of the bipartisan group of eight senators who drafted an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws see Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and an original sponsor of the Dream Act for young immigrants, as a potentially influential partner, Ashley Parker reports. But he is playing hard to get.

• Peter Baker and Jonathan Weisman delve deeper into the details released by Jay Carney, President Obama's press secretary, that go beyond a previous White House account on what the administration knew about the Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of conservative groups.

Around the Web

• The Customs and Border Protection agency presented a plan to Congress that would prevent employee furloughs brought on by the sequester, The Washington Post reports.

• Washington is getting a greater share of the limelight lately, with Amazon.com expected to produce a full season of “Alpha House,” a comedy about Republican senators living together as roommates, Politico reports.

Happenings in Washington

• President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will meet with young immigrants who have received deferred action on deportation, as well as American citizens who are family members of illegal immigrants, in the Oval Office.

• Later, Mr. Biden will speak at a reception in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month.

• The Library of Congress will host a concert in its Coolidge Auditorium in honor of the singer Carole King.

Obama Announces Members of Election Commission

After tapping two of the nation's pre-eminent election lawyers to lead an effort to study the way Americans vote, President Obama on Tuesday announced his intention to appoint eight additional members to a presidential commission designed to improve the electoral process after voters faced long lines and other obstacles in last year's elections.

“As I said in my State of the Union Address, when any American, no matter where they live or what their party, is denied that right simply because too many obstacles stand in their way, we are betraying our ideals,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “We have an obligation to ensure that all eligible voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots without unwarranted obstructions or unnecessary delay.”

Mr. Obama, who announced in February that Robert F. Bauer, the president's former lawyer and White House counsel, and Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a Republican lawyer who worked for Mitt Romney, would be co-chairmen of the panel, said on Tuesday that he would round out the panel with representatives from business, public servants and state election officials.

Among those he intends to appoint are Brian Britton, vice president of global park operations and initiatives at Walt Disney World, and Joe Echevarria, chief executive of the accounting firm Deloitte.

The remaining members are expected to be Trey Grayson, a Republican who lost to Senator Rand Paul in the 2010 Kentucky Senate primary and now directs the Institute of Politics at Harvard University; Larry Lomax, the registrar in Clark County, Nev.; Michele Coleman Mayes, the vice president, general counsel and secretary at the New York Public Library; Ann McGeehan, a lawyer for the Texas County and District Retirement System; Tammy Patrick, a federal compliance officer for the elections department in Maricopa County, Ariz.; and Christopher M. Thomas, the elections director in Michigan.

The commission will begin meeting in June and is expected to produce a report six months later. It is tasked with identifying “nonpartisan ways to shorten lines at polling places, promote the efficient conduct of elections and provide better access to the polls for all voters,” the announcement said.

The executive order creating the commission pointed to problems faced by members of the military, overseas voters, voters with disabilities and voters with limited English proficiency and special needs. It listed the training of poll workers, issues with polling centers and voting machines, the management of voter rolls, ballot simplicity and overseas balloting among several suggested areas of study.

Voting rights advocates have welcomed the creation of the panel, spurred by long lines and voting problems in the 2012 elections that experts say disproportionately affected poor and minority voters, who are traditionally Democratic constituencies. But the groups are tempering their expectations until they see whether the panel is effective.

“The Presidential Commission on Election Administration can help get to the bottom of the problems that made it very difficult for some voters to cast their ballot in the last election,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a statement after the president's announcement. “I urge the members of this nonpartisan panel to apply their impressive experience in running elections and running businesses to determining how to make it easier for every eligible citizen to vote.”

Send Us Your Questions About Drones

On Thursday afternoon, President Obama will give a speech at National Defense University during which he is expected to provide his first detailed justification for the targeted killing program run by the C.I.A. and the Pentagon.

The Obama administration has carried out hundreds of targeted killing operations using armed drones in Pakistan, Yemen and parts of Africa, but the program has remained, for the most part, a secret. It is unclear how much detail Mr. Obama will give about the drone program, but his speech is likely to renew the public debate about the costs, benefits and efficacy of targeted killing operations.

The New York Times's national security team is taking your questions about drones and their role in the United States's security strategy. Post your questions in the comments below, or on Twitter using the hashtag #AskNYT.

Then, check back before Mr. Obama's speech on Thursday for answers to selected readers' questions from The Times's Mark Mazzetti, Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane.

White House Says Journalists Should Not Be Subject to Criminal Action in Leak Cases

The White House said on Tuesday that it did not think the Justice Department should threaten criminal action against journalists who report on sensitive national security matters, distancing itself from a recent case in which a television correspondent was targeted as a possible “co-conspirator” in a leak investigation.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said he discussed the situation with President Obama after reports that James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, was described in criminal terms in an affidavit involving a 2009 article about North Korea posted on the network's Web site.

“I can't comment on the specifics of any ongoing criminal matter,” Mr. Carney told reporters. “But if you're asking me whether the president believes that journalists should be prosecuted for doing their jobs, the answer is no.”

The statement was more definitive than the one the White House had issued the day before, when news of Mr. Rosen's situation was first written about in The Washington Post. Mr. Carney, himself a former reporter for Time magazine, sought to amplify the original response by disavowing the notion of criminalizing journalism without weighing in on the particular case.

Having said that, Mr. Carney asserted that it was still a top priority of government to investigate and prosecute those who leak classified information in violation of the law, saying it was important to balance the need for secrecy with a free press. The Rosen case generated special attention as it came after word that the Justice Department had seized a broad array of phone records from The Associated Press as part of an investigation into a national security leak.

“There is no question that when classified information is leaked, that is a violation of the law,” Mr. Carney said. “And it is a serious matter, as we have seen in some cases.”

He added, “It is also vital to our democracy - and the president believes this deeply - that the press is allowed to pursue investigative journalism freely.”

The Early Word: Approved

Today's Times

• The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a broad overhaul of the nation's immigration laws on Tuesday, sending the legislation to the full Senate, where the fight is expected to last through June, Ashley Parker and Julia Preston report. After intense negotiations, the eight senators finally reached a compromise on one of the major sticking points: raising the cap for high-skilled foreign workers who could fill jobs in the high-tech industry.

• Though political leaders from both parties expressed sympathy for the victims of Oklahoma's killer tornado, it took only hours for Washington to face off over how the cost of devastation would be paid, Peter Baker and Jeremy W. Peters report. The debate is hypothetical, as the government already has $11.6 billion available in a disaster relief fund, but it underscored the fact that even national tragedy does not always bring the capital together.

• A year ago, when the current Internal Revenue Service scandal first emerged â€" and could have threatened President Obama's chances for re-election â€" the White House apparently shrugged, Michael D. Shear reports. For an administration typically equipped with well-honed political radar designed to sniff out and derail conservative conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama, the potentially damaging events at the I.R.S. seemed to pass with little notice.

• In spite of that and other recent controversies, Nate Silver writes, Mr. Obama's approval ratings in various polls have held steady.

Around the Web

• “Even while members of Congress were preaching fiscal restraint and warning of fiscal cliffs and sequestration cuts, more than one-third of the United States House of Representatives was traveling the globe to often-exotic locations at taxpayers expense, with limited explanations for the trips,” The Sarasota Herald Tribune reports.

Happenings in Washington

• After Tuesday's celebration of Carole King at the Library of Congress, the president and first lady will host a concert in the East Room of the White House also honoring the singer-songwriter, who will win the 2013 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song for “You've Got a Friend.”

• The African American Civil War Memorial and Museum will celebrate the sesquicentennial of the establishment of the Bureau of United States Colored Troops with a wreath-laying ceremony.

 

 

 

Obama to Travel to Oklahoma to Inspect Tornado Damage and Meet With Victims

President Obama will travel to Oklahoma on Sunday to inspect the damage from Monday's deadly tornado, which left two dozen people dead, and meet with victims from the ravaged communities, the White House announced on Wednesday.

The president will reprise his role as chief comforter during a trip that comes after similar visits in recent months to New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, Connecticut after the Newtown school shooting, Boston after the marathon bombing and Texas after a fertilizer plant explosion.

Mr. Obama will “see firsthand the response to the devastating tornadoes and severe weather that have impacted the area on Sunday night and Monday,” said Jay Carney, the White House spokesman.

Special Prosecutor Appointed in Investigation of Virginia Governor

Virginia's attorney general has appointed an outside prosecutor to investigate Gov. Bob McDonnell's financial disclosures, in a widening scandal over a political donor who wrote a $15,000 check for the wedding of the governor's daughter, and who was also a benefactor of the attorney general.

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the attorney general, who is also the Republican candidate for governor this year, said on Wednesday that he named the outside prosecutor last November to look into Mr. McDonnell's disclosures.

Mr. Cuccinelli said “information came to my attention” triggering the appointment of the prosecutor. His referral of the case to the Richmond commonwealth's attorney, Mike Herring, whose role is similar to that of a district attorney, “was not a conclusion that any violation occurred,'' Mr. Cuccinelli said in a statement.

The investigation came to light through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Richmond Times-Dispatch, which first reported it.

Mr. McDonnell and Mr. Cuccinelli, who are yoked in an awkward political alliance â€" the former a popular governor of a purple state and his would-be successor, a Tea Party favorite - have been swept up in controversy over their friendship with a Virginia businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., who gave generously to both officials.

Mr. McDonnell did not report the $15,000 check for wedding catering in 2011, telling reporters when asked about it this year that it was gift to his daughter and exempt under Virginia law. The gift was disclosed by a former chef at the Executive Mansion, who accused Mr. McDonnell and Virginia's first lady of “wrongdoing” and “abuse” in interviews with investigators from the state police, the attorney general's office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to court records.

The chef, Todd Schneider, was accused of stealing food from the Executive Mansion. In an apparent effort to avoid charges, he presented himself to authorities as a whistle-blower last spring. The F.B.I. has reportedly looked into whether a quid pro quo existed between Mr. Williams and the governor and his wife, Maureen McDonnell, who helped promote a dietary supplement made by Mr. Williams's company, Star Scientific. Mr. Williams donated over $100,000 to Mr. McDonnells's campaigns. The first lady promoted the supplement to investors and was host of a luncheon to introduce it at the Executive Mansion.

The governor has said he and his wife are friends of Mr. Williams, but he did him no favors.

Mr. Williams also gave gifts to Mr. Cuccinelli, including vacations at a lake house and a $1,500 catered Thanksgiving dinner, which Mr. Cuccinelli omitted from financial disclosure forms as required by law. He admitted the gifts, dating from 2010 and 2012, at a meeting with reporters on April 26, where he explained that he had inadvertently left them off his disclosure forms. The total value of gifts he accepted from Mr. Williams, including earlier ones he did disclose, is more than $18,000.

As Mr. Cuccinelli's campaign for governor heats up against the Democratic nominee, Terry McAuliffe, he has sought to distance and distinguish his relationship with Mr. Williams from that of Mr. McDonnell's. Mr. Cuccinelli said in April he had not seen Mr. Williams in nine months. At the time, he announced he was asking an outside attorney - Mr. Herring - to review his own statements of economic interest. “He did this on his own out of his desire for full transparency, so that another official would be in a position to provide an independent review,'' Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for Mr. Cuccinelli in the attorney general's office, said on Wednesday.

Food Company and Farmers Union Back Changes to Aid Program

One of the world's largest food companies offered its support on Wednesday for changes to the way the United States provides food aid to developing countries, adding critical agribusiness backing for President Obama's plans to overhaul the program.

While not explicitly endorsing the proposals advocated by Mr. Obama, which include buying some food from local producers rather than from farmers in the United States, Cargill, based in Minnesota, said that changes needed to be made to the program because conditions have evolved since it was created in 1954. Not the least of those changes is that there are now more than 870 million people worldwide who lack sufficient food.

“Cargill believes it is time we reassess the program to make certain it is efficient and effective in meeting the increasing needs and allow for some flexibility in the delivery of a portion of food aid assistance so that food can get more quickly to people on the brink of starvation,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Cargill is a major player in the food aid program, involved in trading, processing and transporting agricultural commodities like grains.

The company's support for overhauling the program came as a major farm group also called for more flexibility.

The National Farmers Union - the second largest farmer organization in the United States, behind the Farm Bureau - expressed its support for more flexibility in the food aid program in an opinion article published on the agriculture Web site Agri-Pulse.

“Our food system has changed drastically in the past 50 years; naturally, our system of international aid must evolve as well,” wrote Roger Johnson, president of the farmers union. “Ultimately, if we truly want to end global food insecurity, we must consider what is going to best serve local farmers and local economies - especially in areas of the world that suffer from hunger.”

The Obama administration welcomed the calls for reform.

“The recent support from Cargill and the National Farmers Union underscores how the president's proposal will maintain the vital role of American agriculture in food aid,” said Rajiv Shah, administrator of the Agency for International Development. “We have seen growing momentum behind this proposal and the need to modernize our food assistance programs to address today's challenges, become more flexible and save more lives with maximum efficiency.”

Supporters of the plan also welcomed the statements from the farm union and the grain company.

“The calls from the National Farmers Union and Cargill for reform to U.S. food aid programs signal strong momentum for reform and shatter the myth that American agricultural interests are unified in their opposition to reform,” said Eric Munoz, senior policy adviser at Oxfam America, an international charity. “Leaders in Congress should seize this momentum and have the courage to push forward efforts to achieve real food aid reform this year.”

The Senate and House Agriculture Committees have made some changes to the food aid program, but have opposed plans by Mr. Obama to rework it fundamentally, saying that doing so would hurt United States farmers.

Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee introduced its own bill to overhaul the food aid program. Sponsored by the committee's chairman, Representative Ed Royce, Republican of California, and Representative Karen Bass, Democrat of California, the legislation would make changes to the program that generally follow those laid out by the Obama administration.

In addition to buying food locally, the administration is proposing that the food aid program be moved from the Agriculture Department to the foreign aid budget. It also wants to end the controversial practice of food aid “monetization,” in which Washington gives American-grown grains to international charities. The groups then sell the products on the market in poor countries and use the money to finance their antipoverty programs.

Transportation Nominee Sails Through Confirmation Hearing

Drew Angerer for The New York Times Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, Presient Obama's choice to be transportation secretary, had a smooth ride through his confirmation hearing Wednesday.

President Obama's choice to be transportation secretary, Mayor Anthony Foxx of Charlotte, N.C., zipped through a confirmation hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. He was questioned on many points but pushed to make promises on nothing more than working cooperatively with Congress, putting safety first, trying to maintain air traffic control tower staffing, and visiting the site of the recent commuter train accident in Bridgeport, Conn.

“This is probably one of the most pleasant hearings on the Hill today,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, who asked Mr. Foxx to visit that state's 10,000 lakes - and, incidentally, provide support for winter trails used for snowmobiles and cross-country skiing. It was one of a number of questions about the goody-basket of Transportation Department activities, which include financing new highways, bridges and improvements to rail routes and airports.

Mr. Foxx was deeply involved in transportation in Charlotte, including the development of a light-rail system that carries 15,000 riders daily, but he has very little track record on national transportation issues.

There were no hostile questions during the two-hour hearing, and neither the nominee nor the committee members staked out adamant positions on the sometimes contentious issues of tolls on interstate highways and billing private pilots for use of the air traffic control system.

But, as the committee chairman, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, said, this is “a tumultuous time of constrained resources.” Some Republican members of the committee complained that the Obama administration had implemented across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration, to air traffic control staffing in a way intended to be painful to the public. Some predicted that sequestration would persist into the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

“I hope that this Congress can achieve a broader answer to our budget challenges,” Mr. Foxx replied mildly. But he added, “If we are left with sequester, it would be my goal to do an effective job working within the administration and working with this Congress to have a no-surprises result.''

If he is confirmed, Mr. Foxx will face a variety of difficult issues. As consumers use less gasoline, revenue from the gas tax is falling increasingly short of what is needed to maintain the interstate highway system. Smaller roads need investment, too. The Federal Aviation Administration lacks money to deploy new air traffic control equipment, and the freight rail system is stressed.

Mr. Foxx, an African-American, would be one of the few minority members of the cabinet, a fact not explicitly touched on in the hearing. But when Mr. Rockefeller rearranged the order in which senators questioned the nominee, it emerged in an oblique way. Senators are usually called on in the order in which they arrive in the hearing room, but the early arrivals were all Democrats, and Mr. Rockefeller wanted to insert a Republican in the order. So Senator William M. Cowan, Democrat of Massachusetts, agreed to cede his place in the queue to Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina. Mr. Cowan and Mr. Scott are the only two black senators.

“A fellow member of the African-American Senate caucus,” Mr. Cowan observed.

Mr. Scott replied, “I thought perhaps Senator Rockefeller thought I was Senator Cowan.''

To which Mr. Cowan responded, to general amusement, “I'm glad we're both here together so we can put the truth to the rumor that there is only one of us.''

Skullcandy Cuts the Cord, and Offers Better Sound

The Plyr1 wireless gaming headset from Skullcandy.

Completing its move into the realm of gaming headsets, Skullcandy last week released the flagship product, the Plyr1, in its new audio line.

Like other headsets in this line, the Plyr1 (pronounced “player one”) is designed for casual gamers. At $180, it's more expensive than rivals, but it does offer a few advantages.

For starters, the headset is wireless, which means no cables snaking across the floor. This allows you to roam while playing without fear of tripping over or pulling out a cable (a feat I'm apt to do). The controls, easily accessible on the right ear cup, include a switch that allows customization of the mix of chat and game. And the adjustable microphone mutes when flipped up.

But the best benefit is the Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound, typically found in high-end gaming headsets. The Plyr1 delivers clear, immersive sound through a wireless audio transmitter that plugs into your console (Xbox, PS3 or PC). The range is great, certainly larger than the size of my living room, and the transmitter doubles as a stand to recharge the headset.

Three equalizer modes offer distinct sound levels. The precision mode is great for third-person shooters because it helps pinpoint sounds around you. The bass mode offers plenty of boom without being overpowering, and the supreme mode is a balance between the two.

The Plyr1 has a comfortable, snug fit that allows for hours of game play, but there is no audio jack, so you cannot plug it into a smartphone or tablet. Available in black or white, the Plyr1 will be sold exclusively at Best Buy for two weeks, then at other retailers.

The Plyr1 is a step up for casual gamers who want better sound but aren't ready to make the jump to a high-end headset.

Q&A: Getting Passes for Passbook

Q.

Can I get coupons and tickets for my iOS Passbook only from App Store apps?

A.

While more than two dozen iOS apps are now integrated with Apple's Passbook feature for iOS 6, you can get passes - electronic tickets, boarding passes, coupons, loyalty cards and the like - from other sources. Businesses that do not have their own stand-alone iOS apps can still create their own passes through third-party companies like Fosbury, PassTools and PassKit, or with other solutions like PassHound. Apple has its own guide for Passbook developers as well.

These independently created passes then can be distributed in different ways. For example, a company can attach a pass (a file with a .pkpass extension) for a digital coupon or ticket to an e-mail message. On an iPhone, the recipient just needs to tap the attachment to add the pass to Passbook. Passes can also be delivered through links on a Web page; tapping the link deposits the pass in Passbook.

The .pkpass format used by Passbook is not confined to iOS devices, either. Android apps like PassWallet (which recognizes .pkpass files attached to messages or posted on Web sites) are also available for those who like Apple's idea of a digital wallet but do not happen to own an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Power and Protection in One Case

The Freedom 2000 battery case from MyCharge.

Knowing that power and protection are a constant necessity for personal devices, technology companies have lately been combining both into a single case. MyCharge, a maker of backup batteries, has joined the competition with a model for the iPhone 5, the Freedom 2000.

Named for the 2,000-milliamp-hour battery inside, the Freedom 2000 provides power through a tethered Lightning connector. Just pop out the connector from the bottom of the case to charge the phone. When not in use, the connector tucks discreetly back into the case, leaving the headphone jack and Lightning port uncovered and accessible.

The case adds considerable bulk, doubling the thickness of the iPhone 5, but it's still surprisingly light, weighing less than 3 ounces. Its durable one-piece design has a foam interior coupled with rubber side walls and a hard exterior that provide ample protection; MyCharge claims the case can protect phones from drops of up to 48 inches.

But the raised bezel on the front is too low, leaving the phone's screen exposed. And the power button is covered, requiring some direct pressure with a fingernail to turn the phone on and off.

According to MyCharge, all those milliamps offer up to 110 percent of extra battery power. I let my phone's battery slip to 10 percent, and then plugged it into the case, which pushed the power back up to 93 percent in about 90 minutes.

The case is too bulky for occasional use, but it is ideal for consummate power hogs. My Samsung Galaxy, for instance, drains its battery every day by 8 p.m.; unfortunately, MyCharge doesn't have a case for Samsung phones.

The Freedom 2000 is available in black or silver and costs $80, about the same as similar cases from competitors, like Mophie and PowerSkin. MyCharge provides more power than its rivals, but offers fewer choices. If MyCharge truly wants to compete, it has to bring more options to market.

Q&A: Protecting Your Mail Account

Q.

How can I keep my e-mail account from getting hacked?

A.

E-mail security is an ongoing issue, but there are basic precautions you can take to help keep your account safer from intruders, viruses and other malicious scenarios. To start, make sure your computer's operating system, security software and e-mail/Web browser program have all the latest updates and security patches installed.

Skipping simple or easy-to-remember passwords in favor of more complex creations made up of letters, numbers and symbols can help thwart those trying to guess your password. Microsoft's site has a guide to creating strong passwords and a program that evaluates password strength.

If your e-mail provider offers it, take advantage of “two-step authentication,” which adds an extra layer of security to your e-mail account, usually by requiring you to enter a code sent to your mobile phone whenever you sign into the account on a different computer. The major mail providers all offer such verification services, including Google's Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Microsoft's Outlook.com.

Time-honored safety practices, like ignoring messages asking for personal information and not clicking links in messages (unless you know the sender and the link is obviously to an entertainment or news site) are also advised. You should also avoid entering your e-mail name and password on public computers or networks.

If someone does get control of your account and you need to verify your identity with your e-mail provider, be prepared to supply plenty of information. In addition to correctly answering the security questions you may have set up when you created the account, you might have to list things like the subjects of recent messages, the e-mail addresses of regular correspondents and other details that only you personally would know.

App Adds Smartphone Features to a GPS

A Garmin app lets you add smartphone smarts to a GPS like the Nuvi 3597LMHD.

Garmin's Nuvi GPS device is getting better at tying into your phone, if you can live with the additional expense.

The Nuvi links to a phone through the Smartphone Link app. The app has been available for Android since last year, and is now also available for the iPhone.

The app is free and adds several features, some that improve on the standard functions of the Nuvi. A good example is the local search on the GPS, which was unable to find a particular Federal Express office near me. Using the app, which is powered by Google, I found the office and used Address Sharing to send the coordinates to the Garmin. You can also send addresses directly from your phone's contacts to your GPS.

It has other capabilities. The basic weather feature gives a seven-day forecast for your location or others. The Dynamic Parking feature not only locates nearby parking lots, but gives you pricing, and in some cases, the maximum-allowed vehicle height.

The Last Mile feature marks your phone's GPS with the location of your car when the ignition is turned off. I found this to be a little buggy. My map image disappeared (it did save the location, though), and while it can get you in the vicinity of your car, it may not be as close as the correct row. Also, it doesn't record altitude, so if you are in a multistory lot you could end up in the right row on the wrong level.

In addition, MyGarmin Messaging will alert you when there are new maps to download, provided you register for the service online. Advanced Weather ($5) adds color-coded alerts and animated weather radar. It may give you an idea of storms that are moving toward you, and you can check it using phone apps like Weather HD, which has a free edition.

PhotoLive Traffic Cameras ($5) lets you see images from traffic cameras on the Garmin, although they aren't really quite “live,” in that they are static images. It makes it hard to tell whether heavy traffic is moving briskly at 45 m.p.h. or creeping along at 15 m.p.h.

The most expensive add-on is Real-Time Traffic information ($20), which delivers frequently updated Navteq traffic information to the GPS. This is already built in to the top-of-the-line Nuvi 3597LMTHD that I tested, but not on the lower Advanced Series Nuvis.

You can see similar traffic information on your phone free from Google Maps, which may be no better or worse than Navteq's offering. People have told me of avoiding congestion thanks to traffic alerts, but I have never once been saved from a traffic jam by one. In fact, while testing the Nuvi, I sat staring at the red brake lights of cars stopped on I-95 while the Nuvi screen read, “No traffic reported ahead.” Garmin looked into it, and said an alert had been broadcast, but a faulty tower may have kept me from receiving it.

My suggestion is to start with the free app for now. Then, unless your demand for tidiness requires that all of your services are integrated in a single device, rely on free apps that offer alternatives to the Garmin pay services. In time, I expect Garmin will iron out the wrinkles.

Q&A: Paying Extra for Phone Freedom

Q.

What is the advantage of getting an unlocked cellphone?

A.

Wireless carriers typically subsidize the cost of a new mobile phone by requiring you to sign a two-year contract for service on their networks â€" in effect, “locking” the phone to the network. This subsidy can lower the price of a new smartphone to about $200 from around $600, but it basically means you cannot legally use the phone with any other company's network without permission from your carrier.

Modifications earlier this year to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act actually made unlocking your phone without your carrier's permission illegal. A Congressional bill, the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, was recently introduced to change the current law.

You can still buy an unlocked phone outright, though, and one big advantage to doing so is that you can use it freely on other carrier networks - especially if you buy a handset that works on the G.S.M. networks used around the world. Traveling with an unlocked G.S.M. phone means you can buy local inexpensive service plans, and S.I.M. cards, in the countries you visit and not worry about exorbitant roaming charges from a company back home.

A Fitting Screen Protector for the iPhone 5

While clear film phone screen protectors can be a good idea, applying them requires a lot of patience and some skill. Otherwise you end up with a bubble-filled membrane that is hard to type on and see through.

A diagram of the Tru-Fit assembly.

Trü Protection is trying to simplify the process for iPhone 5 owners with a mounting system intended to automatically align a phone and a screen protector.

It's called Trü-Fit, and here's how it works.

Inside the package are screen cleaners, two protective screens and a tray.

Obviously, use the cleaners to clear your phone screen. When the glass is prepped, take the protective screen cover and slide it into the tray. You then peel back a tab that exposes an adhesive. Then the phone goes into the tray, face down, over the sticky screen protector. Press your phone into the tray firmly, then pop it out of the tray. The screen protector should be affixed.

It should, but I failed at my first two tries. By the third, I figured out exactly how to line up the protector in the tray, which must be just so.

It is easier than applying a protective screen without a tray, but still requires some attention and patience.

By the third try the protective screen came out reasonably well centered and I was able to press the few small bubbles out from under the protector to the edges where they disappeared.

The screen protectors are $20 a pair and have a matte anti-glare finish. I thought the matte finish made the screen easier to see once I increased my screen brightness, but that eats more battery power.

It is impossible to say how much protection you get from a film like this, though. As I have written before, there is no standard for testing these protective films. At the very least, it's not likely to do any harm.

Earbuds Designed for Women, Not in Pink

When a company says it makes a headphone designed for women, it usually means it has taken regular headphones and painted them pink.

The Koss FitBuds.

The Koss FitClips.

The audio company Koss has gone a step further, though, making women's headphones that are one-third smaller than men's headphones. And they're not available in pink.

The line of headphones, the Koss Fit Series, has two models - the FitClips and the FitBuds, both priced at $30.

The FitClips are an in-ear headphone with a retention clip that goes behind the ear. They are made of a soft rubbery material that fit around my smallish (lady-size?) ears comfortably.

The FitBuds go directly into your ear canals and, like the FitClips, come with three sizes of ear cushions.

The headphones sound good for a $30 set. They are a little on the dynamic side, meaning the sound is a little exaggerated. The tone gives it a pleasing effect as though you are listening through a warm old analog tube amplifier. But songs with heavy bass can sound boomy.

One of the selling points of the headphones is that the Olympic swimmer Dara Torres helped design them. Although, do you know who I like to have design my headphones? Headphone designers. Koss said they used those, too. Female designers.

Although these headphones do not come in pink, they do come in purple, yellow, orange, blue and sea foam green. They are available in Walmart stores.

Transportation Nominee Sails Through Confirmation Hearing

Drew Angerer for The New York Times Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, Presient Obama’s choice to be transportation secretary, had a smooth ride through his confirmation hearing Wednesday.

President Obama’s choice to be transportation secretary, Mayor Anthony Foxx of Charlotte, N.C., zipped through a confirmation hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. He was questioned on many points but pushed to make promises on nothing more than working cooperatively with Congress, putting safety first, trying to maintain air traffic control tower staffing, and visiting the site of the recent commuter train accident in Bridgeport, Conn.

“This is probably one of the most pleasant hearings on the Hill today,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, who asked Mr. Foxx to visit that state’s 10,000 lakes â€" and, incidentally, provide support for winter trails used for snowmobiles and cross-country skiing. It was one of a number of questions about the goody-basket of Transportation Department activities, which include financing new highways, bridges and improvements to rail routes and airports.

Mr. Foxx was deeply involved in transportation in Charlotte, including the development of a light-rail system that carries 15,000 riders daily, but he has very little track record on national transportation issues.

There were no hostile questions during the two-hour hearing, and neither the nominee nor the committee members staked out adamant positions on the sometimes contentious issues of tolls on interstate highways and billing private pilots for use of the air traffic control system.

But, as the committee chairman, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, said, this is “a tumultuous time of constrained resources.” Some Republican members of the committee complained that the Obama administration had implemented across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration, to air traffic control staffing in a way intended to be painful to the public. Some predicted that sequestration would persist into the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

“I hope that this Congress can achieve a broader answer to our budget challenges,” Mr. Foxx replied mildly. But he added, “If we are left with sequester, it would be my goal to do an effective job working within the administration and working with this Congress to have a no-surprises result.’’

If he is confirmed, Mr. Foxx will face a variety of difficult issues. As consumers use less gasoline, revenue from the gas tax is falling increasingly short of what is needed to maintain the interstate highway system. Smaller roads need investment, too. The Federal Aviation Administration lacks money to deploy new air traffic control equipment, and the freight rail system is stressed.

Mr. Foxx, an African-American, would be one of the few minority members of the cabinet, a fact not explicitly touched on in the hearing. But when Mr. Rockefeller rearranged the order in which senators questioned the nominee, it emerged in an oblique way. Senators are usually called on in the order in which they arrive in the hearing room, but the early arrivals were all Democrats, and Mr. Rockefeller wanted to insert a Republican in the order. So Senator William M. Cowan, Democrat of Massachusetts, agreed to cede his place in the queue to Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina. Mr. Cowan and Mr. Scott are the only two black senators.

“A fellow member of the African-American Senate caucus,” Mr. Cowan observed.

Mr. Scott replied, “I thought perhaps Senator Rockefeller thought I was Senator Cowan.’’

To which Mr. Cowan responded, to general amusement, “I’m glad we’re both here together so we can put the truth to the rumor that there is only one of us.’’

Food Company and Farmers Union Back Changes to Aid Program

One of the world’s largest food companies offered its support on Wednesday for changes to the way the United States provides food aid to developing countries, adding critical agribusiness backing for President Obama’s plans to overhaul the program.

While not explicitly endorsing the proposals advocated by Mr. Obama, which include buying some food from local producers rather than from farmers in the United States, Cargill, based in Minnesota, said that changes needed to be made to the program because conditions have evolved since it was created in 1954. Not the least of those changes is that there are now more than 870 million people worldwide who lack sufficient food.

“Cargill believes it is time we reassess the program to make certain it is efficient and effective in meeting the increasing needs and allow for some flexibility in the delivery of a portion of food aid assistance so that food can get more quickly to people on the brink of starvation,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Cargill is a major player in the food aid program, involved in trading, processing and transporting agricultural commodities like grains.

The company’s support for overhauling the program came as a major farm group also called for more flexibility.

The National Farmers Union â€" the second largest farmer organization in the United States, behind the Farm Bureau â€" expressed its support for more flexibility in the food aid program in an opinion article published on the agriculture Web site Agri-Pulse.

“Our food system has changed drastically in the past 50 years; naturally, our system of international aid must evolve as well,” wrote Roger Johnson, president of the farmers union. “Ultimately, if we truly want to end global food insecurity, we must consider what is going to best serve local farmers and local economies â€" especially in areas of the world that suffer from hunger.”

Supporters of Mr. Obama’s plan to change the food aid program welcomed the statements.

“The calls from the National Farmers Union and Cargill for reform to U.S. food aid programs signal strong momentum for reform and shatter the myth that American agricultural interests are unified in their opposition to reform,” said Eric Munoz, senior policy adviser at Oxfam America, an international charity. “Leaders in Congress should seize this momentum and have the courage to push forward efforts to achieve real food aid reform this year.”

The Senate and House Agriculture Committees have made some changes to the food aid program, but have opposed plans by Mr. Obama to rework it fundamentally, saying that doing so would hurt United States farmers.

Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee introduced its own bill to overhaul the food aid program. Sponsored by the committee’s chairman, Representative Ed Royce, Republican of California, and Representative Karen Bass, Democrat of California, the legislation would make changes to the program that generally follow those laid out by the Obama administration.

In addition to buying food locally, the administration is proposing that the food aid program be moved from the Agriculture Department to the foreign aid budget. It also wants to end the controversial practice of food aid “monetization,” in which Washington gives American-grown grains to international charities. The groups then sell the products on the market in poor countries and use the money to finance their antipoverty programs.

Special Prosecutor Appointed in Investigation of Virginia Governor

Virginia’s attorney general has appointed an outside prosecutor to investigate Gov. Bob McDonnell’s financial disclosures, in a widening scandal over a political donor who wrote a $15,000 check for the wedding of the governor’s daughter, and who was also a benefactor of the attorney general.

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the attorney general, who is also the Republican candidate for governor this year, said on Wednesday that he named the outside prosecutor last November to look into Mr. McDonnell’s disclosures.

Mr. Cuccinelli said “information came to my attention” triggering the appointment of the prosecutor. His referral of the case to the Richmond commonwealth’s attorney, Mike Herring, whose role is similar to that of a district attorney, “was not a conclusion that any violation occurred,’’ Mr. Cuccinelli said in a statement.

The investigation came to light through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Richmond Times-Dispatch, which first reported it.

Mr. McDonnell and Mr. Cuccinelli, who are yoked in an awkward political alliance - the former a popular governor of a purple state and his would-be successor, a Tea Party favorite â€" have been swept up in controversy over their friendship with a Virginia businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., who gave generously to both officials.

Mr. McDonnell did not report the $15,000 check for wedding catering in 2011, telling reporters when asked about it this year that it was gift to his daughter and exempt under Virginia law. The gift was disclosed by a former chef at the Executive Mansion, who accused Mr. McDonnell and Virginia’s first lady of “wrongdoing” and “abuse” in interviews with investigators from the state police, the attorney general’s office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to court records.

The chef, Todd Schneider, was accused of stealing food from the Executive Mansion. In an apparent effort to avoid charges, he presented himself to authorities as a whistle-blower last spring. The F.B.I. has reportedly looked into whether a quid pro quo existed between Mr. Williams and the governor and his wife, Maureen McDonnell, who helped promote a dietary supplement made by Mr. Williams’s company, Star Scientific. Mr. Williams donated over $100,000 to Mr. McDonnells’s campaigns. The first lady promoted the supplement to investors and was host of a luncheon to introduce it at the Executive Mansion.

The governor has said he and his wife are friends of Mr. Williams, but he did him no favors.

Mr. Williams also gave gifts to Mr. Cuccinelli, including vacations at a lake house and a $1,500 catered Thanksgiving dinner, which Mr. Cuccinelli omitted from financial disclosure forms as required by law. He admitted the gifts, dating from 2010 and 2012, at a meeting with reporters on April 26, where he explained that he had inadvertently left them off his disclosure forms. The total value of gifts he accepted from Mr. Williams, including earlier ones he did disclose, is more than $18,000.

As Mr. Cuccinelli’s campaign for governor heats up against the Democratic nominee, Terry McAuliffe, he has sought to distance and distinguish his relationship with Mr. Williams from that of Mr. McDonnell’s. Mr. Cuccinelli said in April he had not seen Mr. Williams in nine months. At the time, he announced he was asking an outside attorney â€" Mr. Herring â€" to review his own statements of economic interest. “He did this on his own out of his desire for full transparency, so that another official would be in a position to provide an independent review,’’ Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for Mr. Cuccinelli in the attorney general’s office, said on Wednesday.

Obama to Travel to Oklahoma to Inspect Tornado Damage and Meet With Victims

President Obama will travel to Oklahoma on Sunday to inspect the damage from Monday’s deadly tornado, which left two dozen people dead, and meet with victims from the ravaged communities, the White House announced on Wednesday.

The president will reprise his role as chief comforter during a trip that comes after similar visits in recent months to New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, Connecticut after the Newtown school shooting, Boston after the marathon bombing and Texas after a fertilizer plant explosion.

Mr. Obama will “see firsthand the response to the devastating tornadoes and severe weather that have impacted the area on Sunday night and Monday,” said Jay Carney, the White House spokesman.

The Early Word: Approved

Today’s Times

• The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws on Tuesday, sending the legislation to the full Senate, where the fight is expected to last through June, Ashley Parker and Julia Preston report. After intense negotiations, the eight senators finally reached a compromise on one of the major sticking points: raising the cap for high-skilled foreign workers who could fill jobs in the high-tech industry.

• Though political leaders from both parties expressed sympathy for the victims of Oklahoma’s killer tornado, it took only hours for Washington to face off over how the cost of devastation would be paid, Peter Baker and Jeremy W. Peters report. The debate is hypothetical, as the government already has $11.6 billion available in a disaster relief fund, but it underscored the fact that even national tragedy does not always bring the capital together.

• A year ago, when the current Internal Revenue Service scandal first emerged - and could have threatened President Obama’s chances for re-election - the White House apparently shrugged, Michael D. Shear reports. For an administration typically equipped with well-honed political radar designed to sniff out and derail conservative conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama, the potentially damaging events at the I.R.S. seemed to pass with little notice.

• In spite of that and other recent controversies, Nate Silver writes, Mr. Obama’s approval ratings in various polls have held steady.

Around the Web

• “Even while members of Congress were preaching fiscal restraint and warning of fiscal cliffs and sequestration cuts, more than one-third of the United States House of Representatives was traveling the globe to often-exotic locations at taxpayers expense, with limited explanations for the trips,” The Sarasota Herald Tribune reports.

Happenings in Washington

• After Tuesday’s celebration of Carole King at the Library of Congress, the president and first lady will host a concert in the East Room of the White House also honoring the singer-songwriter, who will win the 2013 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song for “You’ve Got a Friend.”

• The African American Civil War Memorial and Museum will celebrate the sesquicentennial of the establishment of the Bureau of United States Colored Troops with a wreath-laying ceremony.